Create Company

1Step by step, the first time #

1. Open it from Create Company on the Company Selection screen. The button is only there for an Administrator.
2. The first screen is a CHECK, not a form. If anything is missing it says the one thing to fix and stops - nothing is asked of you until the server can actually do the work.
3. Company - the name is the only thing required. It is printed on every document and the database is named after it.
4. Address - three lines, as they should print. Choose India and the State box becomes the state list.
5. Registrations - all optional. The GST number is checked as you type and will not let you past if it is wrong.
6. Year and confirm - the financial year, then a summary showing the exact database name that will be created. Press Create company .
7. It appears in your company list straight away, because it is allocated to you as part of creating it. You are also written into the new company's own user list, so what you save there is recorded as yours. Other users are given the company later, in User Management .

2What the licence allows #

Companies are sold. The allowance is the sum of the company entries on your licence, and it is counted against the companies created UNDER THAT LICENCE - not every company on the server. Two licences on one installation are counted separately, and a company that belongs to no licence is charged to nobody.

The licence is found through the serial number recorded against your login. If that is missing, no allowance can be read and nothing can be created - which is deliberate: creating a company is a one-way act against something somebody paid for, so an allowance that cannot be read is treated as none rather than waved through.

When it refuses, it says how many the licence allows and how many already exist. That is what to quote to your supplier.

Where your licence was bought online, the refusal also offers one more company with its price for the days left of your period. From inside a company its button opens Subscription and Add-ons with the company already selected; from the company list, before any company is open, it says where to go instead. Nothing is charged until you pay there. Each financial year's database counts as a company.

3What the server needs first #

Both are checked before you are asked anything: the folders must exist, the model files must be there AND OPENABLE, and the data folder must accept a file. Existing is not the same as readable - a file can carry permissions stricter than the folder around it, and that is a real cause of a copy failing halfway.

Two different accounts are involved and both must be satisfied: the API writes the copy, and SQL Server attaches it. A data folder the API can write to but SQL Server cannot read will pass every check here and still fail at the attach.

When the model files cannot be opened, the message says which of these it is:

• "... has no permission to read ..." - the account the API runs as (named in the message) is not allowed to read the file. Give that account Read permission on the two files themselves.
• "... cannot be opened: ..." - anything else; the text after the colon is what Windows said.

4Checking the GST number #

Blank is accepted - not every company is registered. A number that IS entered is checked in full: fifteen characters, two digits of state code, a PAN, the entity character, Z, and a check character calculated from the other fourteen.

The check character is the part that earns its keep. Length and shape catch a typo in the wrong place; the check character catches a transposition, which is the mistake people actually make copying fifteen characters off a certificate.

The first two digits are the state, so a number issued in one state while another is selected above is called out by name. Usually it is the state that is wrong, not the number.

5Why is a pick-list empty? #

• Country comes from CountryMaster in the company database you are currently signed into - not from a central list. If that company's copy is empty the box becomes a plain text field and says so, so the country can still be recorded.
• Changing the country away from India clears a state that came from that list, because it no longer means anything.

6If it fails halfway #

Creating a company is a file copy, a database attach and three table writes. The copy and the attach cannot be wrapped in a transaction, so failure is UNDONE rather than rolled back: the database is dropped, the copied files are deleted, and the table writes - which ARE in one transaction - roll back together.

The result screen lists every step that was undone, INCLUDING any undo that itself failed. That is the case worth reading: if it says a database could not be dropped or a file could not be deleted, something is left behind and needs removing by hand before the same name is used again.

While it runs, the page shows the five steps as they happen - checking the licence and folders, copying the model database (with how many MB are done), attaching it to SQL Server, setting up logins and permissions, and registering the company and adding you as its user. If one fails, it is marked with a cross and the reason underneath is SQL Server's or Windows' own words, for example "Unable to open the physical file ... Access is denied" at the attach, which means SQL Server's service account cannot read the data folder. The message at the top names the step too.

7Rules and integrity #

• Only an Administrator may create a company. The button is hidden for anyone else and the endpoint refuses them as well - the hidden button is a courtesy, not the rule.
• The company code is the next one after the highest in use. It is not chosen and not reused.
• The financial year must END after it begins.
• A database of the same name, or a data file of the same name, stops the run before anything is copied.
• Three rows are written together: the company, its financial year and your allocation to it. All three or none.
• The licence the company belongs to is recorded ON the company, not in CompanyLicenseMapping. That table records an ACTIVATION - which credentials, on which machine - and creating a company is not one.
• The financial-year row is not optional bookkeeping - it carries the DATABASE NAME, and the company list joins to it. A company without one exists and is invisible.

8Shortcut keys #

• Tab / Shift+Tab - move between fields.
• Enter on a button - press it. The wizard has no Enter-to-submit: creating a company is deliberate, not something you fall into by pressing Enter in a text box.
• Esc - show or hide this help.

9If something does not work #